


A Good Man

by KatieComma



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/pseuds/KatieComma
Summary: Follow up to S2E7 - This was inspired by the conversation Jack and Mac have about his dad:Jack: You would've liked him. And, oh, my gosh, he would've liked you. Just as long as you didn't take apart his ham radio, though. He he loved his ham radio.Mac: Yeah, that would've been tricky, 'cause you know how much I love taking apart ham radios.Jack: Yeah.Mac: I'm guessing your dad and I's relationship would've been very complicated.Jack: Oh, yeah, to say the least.





	A Good Man

Mac was so careful with the screws. Turning them slowly with even pressure. Once they’d all been removed he carefully lifted the metal casing away to reveal a maze of wires, transformers, switches and capacitors.

Setting aside the metal case, he set to work with his Swiss Army Knife.

“What are you doin’?” A voice came up behind him, followed by the firm even footsteps of someone with military training. “What in the sam hill do you think you’re doin’ kid?”

Mac looked up to find an old man looming over him. The man must have been in his late sixties or early seventies. He wore a button up plaid shirt and a pair of worn blue jeans. His hair, shaved close in military style was bright white, a stark contrast to his dark brown eyes that were still alert and sharp despite his years. There was something about the set of his jaw that was familiar to Mac, and maybe the nose too.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doin’ to my poor ham radio?” The man demanded again.

Mac looked down, as though he’d forgotten what he was doing. “I’m, uh-”

The old man cut him off. “Don’t remember your own name, huh? That ain’t a good sign.”

“MacGyver,” Mac said, holding out his hand. “I’m a friend of Jack’s.”

“Any friend of my son’s is a friend’a mine,” Jack Sr said, grabbing Mac’s hand and nearly shaking it right off. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Mac at the table. “Now you didn’t answer my first question kid. What in the sam hill are doin’ to my poor radio? It ain’t done nothin’ to you.”

“I,” Mac said, taking his hand back and flexing it a few times to get the feeling back, “am fixing it.”

“It wasn’t broke.”

“Well then, I’m making it better,” Mac replied, returning his focus to the electronics in front of him.

“Mac. Gyver,” Jack Sr split them up, like they were two separate names. “My son talks about you a lot kid.”

“Is that so?” Mac asked, flipping the pliers out from his knife and setting to work.

“Yup,” Jack’s dad replied, settling back into his chair. “Tells me all these stories about these missions you all go on…”

Mac looked up sharply. “That’s classified information Mr. Dalton,” Mac said.

“That right?” The old man replied, with a very Jack-like grin on his face. “I’ll just make sure to keep it all under my hat then. Who’m I gonna tell anyway?” He motioned around to the empty house they were in. Just furniture and a ham radio to keep him company. “And you should call me Jack.”

Mac finished disconnecting the wires and pried the old component from the ham radio, discarding it on the table top.

“See now, I’m pretty sure it won’t work without that,” Jack Sr said, picking up the capacitor and turning it around in his hand.

“You’re correct,” Mac said, with his signature dramatic flair as he pulled the new capacitor from his pocket and held it up in the light. “But this one will work even better. It’s just going to take me a few minutes to get it all connected.”

“My boy always says that everything you ever make works just like a charm,” Jack Sr said. “If my son trusts you with his life, I think I can trust you with my ole radio here.”

Mac tinkered away, and shot a quick smile at the old man. “Good thing too, cause I sorta already took it apart.”

“In all seriousness here for a minute Mr. MacGyver,” Jack’s dad said as he leaned across the table toward Mac. “My son wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for you. And for that I gotta say thank you. Honestly, you could smash my radio into a million little bits right now and I couldn’t even find it in myself to be angry with you.”

Mac looked up to meet the serious look in the man’s eyes. “He’s a good man,” Mac said, “and he’s saved my life more times than I can count. More than I’ve saved his. I owe him.”

“But that’s not why you do it,” Jack Sr said.

Mac shook his head. It sure wasn’t. Jack was family. More than family, and Mac would do anything for him.

“It’s not often we get to pick our family,” the old man said, echoing Mac’s thoughts. “It’s a gift, that.”

The air between them was suddenly full of sincerity and a little awkwardness, since they didn’t really know each other.

“It’ll just be a few more minutes, and then we can test it out,” Mac said, turning back to the installation of the new capacitor.

“You know, I watched my boy rank up through the army, watched him get recruited for Delta Force,” Jack Sr said, “always knew he was special. Never thought he’d be a secret spy someday though.”

The silence carried again while Mac pinched and connected wires.

“Mark my words, you’ll be the death’a that boy. But damned if he don’t love every minute.”

The words shocked Mac’s hands to stillness and he looked up at Jack Sr. “Mr. Dalton, I can assure that’s not going to happen. I would never let that happen.”

Jack Sr smiled, sat back in his chair, and crossed a booted ankle over his knee. “When Jacky was just a boy I had this dog. Never could figure out why, but them two hated each other somethin’ fierce. This dog’a mine goes and gets himself into trouble one day, caught up in some barbed wire at the edge of the field. Jacky found that dog, but he’s all by himself. What does my Jacky do?” He paused for dramatic effect and sat forward again. “He untangles that wire by hand, that dog snappin’ and bitin’ at him all the while. Came back to the house all cut up with a few good bites too. Had to take him straight to the hospital he was bleedin’ so bad. And I thought: if my Jacky is willing to put his life on the line for a creature he hates so much, what is he gonna put himself through for them he cares about? That’s the day I knew I raised my boy right; I raised up a good man.”

Mac smiled at the story. It was definitely something Jack would do. Jack tried to put on a show like he had a heart of stone, but really he’d put his life on the line for anyone at anytime. It took a special person to have a giving heart like that and do some of the things Jack’d had to do.

“You love my boy, I can see that. He loves you too,” Jack Sr reached out and put a strong weathered hand over Mac’s, a comforting gesture. “But there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. It’s gonna happen whether you like it or not. You gotta prepare yourself son.”

The old rotary phone on the wall rang loudly in the empty house, but it didn’t shout with the clanging of bells that it would normally make. It was Jack’s cellphone ringtone.

“There’s the call now,” Jack Sr said, looking toward the phone with a sad expression on his face.

“No!” Mac yelled at the phone as though that could silence it.

 

 

“No! No!” Mac called out. He wasn’t sitting at a kitchen table fiddling with a radio, he was surrounded by warmth and softness, and darkness. His hands grasped out in the dark for something, anything to hold onto, but his knuckle hit the nightstand painfully. The warmth of a body was at his back.

“Mac, s’alright. Just a nightmare,” Jack’s voice was soft next to him before the bed creaked and shifted as the warmth moved away. The ringtone stopped.

Mac rolled toward where the warm body had been, still confused from the dream, still coming back from that other place that wasn’t real. The panic was radiating in his chest like a stab wound. Where was Jack? He needed to touch him, make sure he was really there.

“Dalton,” Jack said sleepily, voice slow and thick with sleep. “Yeah, he’s probably got it on silent again.” A pause. “Will do.”

A clack sounded as Jack dropped his cell onto the nightstand. The bed creaked and shifted again as he rolled back onto it.

As soon as Jack was near enough, Mac grabbed and pulled at him, needing him close.

“Mac?” Jack asked, worry fully waking him up, making his voice alert.

Mac crushed Jack’s body against him, wrapping his arms around and under him to pull the other man against his chest. The smooth muscle shifting under his fingertips, the buzzed hair like velvet in his hands; Jack was here, he wasn’t dead and gone after all.

“Mac? You ok?” Jack asked, the shifting of his jaw pressed hard against Mac’s naked skin scraping him raw. Mac didn’t care. “It was just a nightmare.” Jack’s arms closed around Mac, a comforting pressure. “Just a nightmare,” Jack repeated.

Mac’s arms began to ache with the strain of holding Jack so tight, and he loosened them. The room came into focus in the dark; Street lights shining in and dimly lighting up their bodies, tangled together.

Jack shifted on the bed, lay on his back, put an arm around Mac and pulled him close to his chest. It was the perfect place to be. He could listen to Jack’s steady heartbeat, another confirmation that he was still alive and well.

“Was it the sandbox?” Jack asked carefully.

Mac shook his head, afraid his voice would give away just how upset he was.

“Murdoc?” Jack ventured.

Mac half smiled against Jack’s chest. How many of those nightmares had woken Jack when Mac called out in the middle of the night? How many times had he fallen asleep and gone back to that room underground, Murdoc taunting him from the darkness? Too many. “Nope,” he replied.

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Jack said, but the tone in his voice betrayed his curiosity.

Mac sat up on an elbow and looked at Jack. With sleep gone now his worry was feeling more foolish by the second, but he never kept anything from Jack. “It was about your dad actually.”

“My dad?” Jack asked, shocked. “What’d he come after you with a pitchfork or somethin’?”

Mac smiled and huffed out a little laugh. “No, nothing like that. I was fixing his ham radio and we were talking about you,” Mac said.

“Ok, so unless he pulled out my old prom pictures, I’m missin’ the nightmare part,” Jack joked.

“He told me some story about his dog and how you got hurt trying to save it, and said you were always sacrificing yourself for people,” Mac’s voice choked up. “And that you were going to die because of me.”

“Mac come on now,” Jack said, he ran his fingers into Mac’s hair and pulled his head back down to lay against his chest. “You know I’d die for you. We’ve talked about that before. But it ain’t gonna happen. We’re too good man. Nothin’ can stop us. We're like superheroes.”

Mac laughed through the emotion that was building in him. “Now you’re just jinxing us.”

Jack’s voice got serious. “And if anything ever did happen, I need you to know that whatever happens ain’t your fault.”

“I know,” Mac said automatically.

Jack pulled his arm from Mac’s shoulders and slid down in the bed so they were face to face. He held Mac’s face in his hands and the look in his eyes was sobering.

“I’m dead serious man,” Jack said. “If I’m in it, it’s my choice, and it’s not on you. Ok?”

Mac felt his face starting to buckle with emotion. The combination of the conversation and the vivid dream were pulling him apart. But he regained his composure and nodded into Jack’s hands. “Ok.” Mac put his hands up to Jack’s face, raking through the stubble with his fingers, and pulled Jack in for a soft kiss.

They flopped back onto their backs, their legs still intertwined and looked up at the dark ceiling.

“Man did I ever hate that dog somethin’ fierce,” Jack broke the silence.

“What dog?” Mac asked.

“That dog’a Pop’s. He was a mean thing,” Jack said. “I did save him once though.”

“Really?” Mac asked, intrigued.

“Yeah,” Jack put on his storytelling voice, similar to Jack Srs from the dream. “I was out walkin’ the ranch one day, round the fence, and there was that damn dog tangled in a section of barbed wire that had gone over. But I was all by myself, and the poor thing was howlin’, so I-”

Mac sat up on his elbow. “You untangled him by yourself?” Mac asked.

Jack nodded. “Course, couldn’t leave the poor thing there.”

“Did he bite you a couple times?” Mac asked, his brain racing.

“Sure did,” Jack replied, “I’m tellin’ you that dog was one mean sumbitch, and we hated each other. Bit me up so good I even had to go to the hospital.”

Mac was staring at Jack now.

“What?” Jack asked, and then repeated himself when Mac didn’t answer right away.

“That’s the story your dad told me in my dream, almost word for word,” Mac replied.

Jack smiled and sighed. “Pop always did love tellin’ that story,” he said as though it was no big thing that Mac’d had a conversation with his dead father. “I’m sure I’ve told that story a few times myself.”

Mac shook his head. He couldn’t ever remember hearing Jack tell that story, but that must have been it. He lay back down on the bed feeling very distinctly weirded out.

“So, your prom picture is a nightmare?” Mac asked.

“It was mostly the hair,” Jack admitted. “Or the suit. Really just the whole thing.”

“Please tell me you’ve got that picture somewhere,” Mac laughed.

“Would you look at the time,” Jack said, checking his naked wrist. “It’s damn near four AM and that call was from Matty. We’ve gotta bounce. Briefing at 05:30, wheels up at 06:00.” Jack untangled his legs from Mac’s and rolled out of bed.

“Woah, hold on,” Mac said, sitting up. “You know I’m a genius spy right? If you’re keeping it here somewhere I’m going to find it.”

Jack waved away the threat and headed for the bathroom.

As he listened to the shower turn on in the bathroom, Mac lay back in bed and started thinking about where exactly Jack would hide something so incriminating, and planned to find it before the day was out. If that failed, he’d just fall back asleep and ask Jack Sr to dig it out of storage.


End file.
